Definition of full node

[BlackHatCoiner]

Due to a recent disagreement, I think it's advisable to define what's a full node.  Definitions are strict, so wherever you consider I'm wrong, correct me.

For every computer that is directly or indirectly connected to the Bitcoin network, we say that it consists a node of the network.  These nodes can either share the block chain, be servers of lightweight clients, contribute to the lightning network's capacity etc.  So, anything that sends and receives information to/from the Bitcoin network can be referred to as a node of it.

A full node is a node that forces all the consensus rules^[1].  They download every block that is sent to them and verify its validity based on these rules.

Myths about full nodes:

• They necessarily keep the whole chain.  False.  Those that discard past blocks are called pruned full nodes or pruned nodes for short.
• “Full” stands for full features.  False.  “Full” stands for full verification.
• Full pruned nodes do not contribute to the network by relaying blocks.  False.  They can advertise themselves as having the latest blocks and therefore, can help the network's bandwidth.

[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Consensus

[1715351142]

1715351142

[pooya87]

Nearly 2 years ago I made a topic about different client types here which is worth mentioning here. I also just edited to make some parts more clear. I think it is a good categorization of all types of bitcoin clients that exist.

[tranthidung]

Nearly 2 years ago I made a topic about different client types here which is worth mentioning here. I also just edited to make some parts more clear. I think it is a good categorization of all types of bitcoin clients that exist.

I did not know your topic, thank for informing about it today.

• Pros and Cons of Bitcoin Node types (Full node and Prune node)
• Mastering Bitcoin, Chapter 8: The Bitcoin network (Andrea Antonopoulos)

[Charles-Tim]

• They necessarily keep the whole chain.  False.  Those that discard past blocks are called pruned full nodes or pruned nodes for short.

Prunned nodes are full nodes, they also contribute to the network, they can validate and propagate bitcoin blocks and transactions and continue to maintain the connection with other peers (be it other pruned nodes or full nodes) in the network. We can say that prunned node have the recent database of blocks and transactions which it received and relays or route to other nodes. But some people have the misconception that full nodes must have the full blockchain, which is not necessary.

• Pros and Cons of Bitcoin Node types (Full node and Prune node)

It is not necessary for full nodes to have the main four functions (blockchain, mining, wallet and routing), the main fucntions necessary for full node is to have the recent blockchain database and the routing function.

[franky1]

pruned nodes cannot act as seeders for IBD(initial block download) to other nodes

pruned nodes become leachers to full nodes but cannot then take the bandwidth strain away from a full node.
because they then are not seeders to offer IBD to others.
pruned nodes effectively put more bandwidth pressure on the remaining fullnodes

full nodes do full features
opting to turn feature off (listening, archiving) makes you less of a service for others, thus providing less of a backbone to the network protocol


pruned nodes validity of the UTXOset is only as good as the date it added the UTXO to it. if there is a hack, bug. you cant just copy and paste the UTXO set to a new computer and continue. you have to re download the entire blockchain again to ensure things did not change. the UTXO set has no hash to confirm or deny changes occured due to hacks or bugs of someones node. and thus no hash to compare to other persons versions to verify you al have the same set.
pruning is a network security risk of conformity(consensus of confirmed immutable utxo's)
pruning removes the immutable security part

there is a reason why people actually use the buzzword "pruned nodes" because it separates the misunderstandings, there are reasons why people use litewalet, spv wallet and other wallets. again to separate the confusion.

[IadixDev]

But pruned nodes cant validate new block if they dont have the full history of transactions ? So they cant mine either ? Or only can confirm transactions that has no input older than the oldest block they have .

For me pruned node are like half way toward spv who was not fully implemented ?

Last time i tried for exemple to add new address or import a wallet into a pruned node it said it had to re download everything ( maybe its not the case anymore or i mis understood something).

I have a full non pruned node now to avoid these issues.

[franky1]

But pruned nodes cant validate new block if they dont have the full history of transactions ? So they cant mine either ? Or only can confirm transactions that has no input older than the older block they have .

For me pruned node are like half way toward spv who was not fully implemented ?

Last time i tried for exemple to add new address or import a wallet into a pruned node it said it had to re download everything ( maybe its not the case anymore or i mis understood something).

I have a full non pruned node now to avoid these issues.

a hacker can attack your node and slip in a UTXO.. and you have no way to then go back and check that the UTXO belonged to an old block. because you dont store old blocks.
there is no hash to confirm that the UTXO set has not been manipulated.

there is very strong reasons why blocks have hashes(to easily check data for edits)
and why archiving those blocks to check such hashes is a security thing(part of verification)

pruned nodes that ask to re-download the entire blockchain when you import a key, is because your pruned node doesnt even keep a complete UTXO of all unspent transactions. it instead only kept the UTXO associated with the keys in your wallet. and each import means it needs to re-download everything again to then get the utxo's associated with new key
yep thats another flaw

[IadixDev]

But pruned nodes cant validate new block if they dont have the full history of transactions ? So they cant mine either ? Or only can confirm transactions that has no input older than the older block they have .

For me pruned node are like half way toward spv who was not fully implemented ?

Last time i tried for exemple to add new address or import a wallet into a pruned node it said it had to re download everything ( maybe its not the case anymore or i mis understood something).

I have a full non pruned node now to avoid these issues.

a hacker can attack your node and slip in a UTXO.. and you have no way to then go back and check that the UTXO belonged to an old block. because you dont store old blocks.
there is no hash to confirm that the UTXO set has not been manipulated.

there is very strong reasons why blocks have hashes(to easily check data for edits)

Yeah its also what i thought, it can keep up to date with newer blocks checking the pow and updating the balance of your wallet safely, or send transactions from your wallet's address safely, add newly generated "virgin" address but thats it they have to trust the pow for any utxo that transfer fund from older blocks,  cant really mine , cant import safely new address that already contain a balance from potentially older blocks ( or they have to re download everything).

I dont know what is the network demand for blocks probably newer blocks are in higher demand than olders but pruned node cant fully validate all tx and have to trust the pow for any transactions containing inputs from older blocks.

[franky1]

Yeah its also what i thought, it can keep up to date with newer blocks checking the pow and updating the balance of your wallet safely, or send transactions from your wallet's address safely, add newly generated "virgin" address but thats it they have to trust the pow for any utxo that transfer fund from older blocks,  cant really mine , cant import safely new address that already contain a balance from potentially older blocks ( or they have to re download everything).

I dont know what is the network demand for blocks probably newer blocks are in higher demand than olders but pruned node cant fully validate all tx and have to trust the pow for any transactions containing inputs from older blocks.

pruned nodes dont have Pow, pruned has nothing to do with PoW
the hash is not about PoW its about the 'chain' of Id's where the chain is a unique cryptography hash that is formed by the unique data of the block which contains the ID of the last block.
destroy the block means the ID wont be able to check the block is still in correct form, because there is no block. meaning

though pruned nodes do validate all transactions when it does the IBD. it then does not keep the blocks. meaning it has to trust that a hacker hasnt manipulated the data afterwards because they cant just do a local re-check in seconds to ensure the database they have has not altered.

pruned nodes are not supposed to be deemed as full nodes minus archiving
but instead litewallets + better verification at first sight

in short,
not fullnode minus
but litewallet plus

other features disabled when 'prune' is set. is
when not storing all UTXO's and only storing UTXO associated with your keys. you then dont relay other peoples transactions. because you cant verify transactions at the relay stage(unconfirmed)

[IadixDev]

Yeah its also what i thought, it can keep up to date with newer blocks checking the pow and updating the balance of your wallet safely, or send transactions from your wallet's address safely, add newly generated "virgin" address but thats it they have to trust the pow for any utxo that transfer fund from older blocks,  cant really mine , cant import safely new address that already contain a balance from potentially older blocks ( or they have to re download everything).

I dont know what is the network demand for blocks probably newer blocks are in higher demand than olders but pruned node cant fully validate all tx and have to trust the pow for any transactions containing inputs from older blocks.

pruned nodes dont have Pow, pruned has nothing to do with PoW
the hash is not about PoW its about the 'chain' of Id's where the chain is a unique cryptography hash that is formed by the unique data of the block which contains the ID of the last block.
destroy the block means the ID wont be able to check the block is still in correct form, because there is no block. meaning

though pruned nodes do validate all transactions when it does the IBD. it then does not keep the blocks. meaning it has to trust that a hacker hasnt manipulated the data afterwards because they cant just do a local re-check in seconds to ensure the database they have has not altered.

pruned nodes are not supposed to be deemed as full nodes minus archiving
but instead litewallets + better verification at first sight

in short,
not fullnode minus
but litewallet plus

other features disabled when 'prune' is set. is
when not storing all UTXO's and only storing UTXO associated with your keys. you then dont relay other peoples transactions. because you cant verify transactions at the relay stage(unconfirmed)

They can still check the pow from block headers to make sure the transactions that they cant validate in New blocks are considered valid by the majority hash rate.

[BlackHatCoiner]

full nodes do full features

Again, full nodes, whether they are full archived, listening or pruned nodes, have the same set of rules. The only difference with full pruned nodes is that they dump their blocks to free space.

Providing less services to the network doesn't make you a non-full node.

if there is a hack, bug. you cant just copy and paste the UTXO set to a new computer and continue. you have to re download the entire blockchain again to ensure things did not change.

And if there's a hack and you run a non-pruned full node, you still need to resync. Keeping the blocks doesn't protect you from such attack. It's just that with a pruned node it'll take longer to sync.

there is a reason why people actually use the buzzword "pruned nodes" because it separates the misunderstandings, there are reasons why people use litewalet, spv wallet and other wallets. again to separate the confusion.

However, they are all part of the network and therefore, nodes. Some just don't follow the consensus rules.

But pruned nodes cant validate new block if they dont have the full history of transactions ?

During validation, you don't look on past blocks. You only need to look on the UTXOs that are in a separate directory. Pruned nodes do keep the so called “chainstate”. If you've started from block 0, then you'll have the proper chain state and thus, can validate the most recent block's content.

For me pruned node are like half way toward spv who was not fully implemented ?

No, no, no. There's no validation in SPV. You have to trust that what servers send you is valid. In pruned node you verify everything yourself.

Last time i tried for exemple to add new address or import a wallet into a pruned node it said it had to re download everything ( maybe its not the case anymore or i mis understood something).

Yeah, this is how it works. It needs to resync to get the new address' balance, but since it doesn't have the blocks, it has to re-download the chain.

pruned nodes that ask to re-download the entire blockchain when you import a key, is because your pruned node doesnt even keep a complete UTXO of all unspent transactions.

This is a lie. Emphasis mine;

They keep the complete database of all UTXOs. This is enough to verify new blocks. What is required for validation is that the tx in the new blocks are spending only the current unspent transaction outputs

[franky1]

full nodes do full features

Again, full nodes, whether they are full archived, listening or pruned nodes, have the same set of rules. The only difference with full pruned nodes is that they dump their blocks to free space.

Providing less services to the network doesn't make you a non-full node.

only difference?
you forgot the lack of being a seeder to other peers for their IBD
oh.. and if all full nodes did prune.. who do new users then leech their IBD from..
                                                    who do any users then re-sync from

if there is a hack, bug. you cant just copy and paste the UTXO set to a new computer and continue. you have to re download the entire blockchain again to ensure things did not change.

And if there's a hack and you run a non-pruned full node, you still need to resync. Keeping the blocks doesn't protect you from such attack. It's just that with a pruned node it'll take longer to sync.

if there is a hack. the fullnode checks the blockchain hashes and if the data matches, the blocks do not get rejected and so life continues. a re-sync is only needed if the blockchain was compromised, rather than your favoured UTXOset database that doesnt have this hash checking ability to verify integrity of old data..

i know you dont believe in blockchains and you are trying hard to drive people not to use blockchains. but take a break for once from your PR campaign.. there are reasons why blockchains were invented and a reason why blockchains provide security above the 'smart contract validation' stuff you think only exists in nodes

pruned nodes that ask to re-download the entire blockchain when you import a key, is because your pruned node doesnt even keep a complete UTXO of all unspent transactions.

This is a lie. Emphasis mine;

They keep the complete database of all UTXOs. This is enough to verify new blocks. What is required for validation is that the tx in the new blocks are spending only the current unspent transaction outputs

he didnt mention which software he had and i didnt ask. also if you do have all UTXO you dont need to re-sync to find balance.. its there in the full UTXO set.. (unless the UTXO set is not there.).

[IadixDev]

he didnt mention which software he had and i didnt ask. also if you do have all UTXO you dont need to re-sync to find balance.. its there in the full UTXO set.. (unless the UTXO set is not there.).

Thats what i wonder as well

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/99681/how-can-i-import-a-private-key-into-a-pruned-node

Generally, the wallet shipped with Bitcoin Core only keeps copies of any transactions that directly involve the wallet. When you import a key, your node scans the entire blockchain to see if any transactions involved that key.

A pruned node has processed the whole blockchain, but only keeps the tail end of the data. This means that when you import a private key in a pruned node, the pruned node does not have the data to check for relevant transactions. That's why it is incompatible with the rescan requirement. To find the transactions related to the key, you will need to repeat the initial synchronization of the blockchain.

I think your choices are

Restart your Bitcore-core node with adequate diskspace and pruning mode disabled, wait for it to sync all over again and then use importprivkey or
Import or sweep your private key into a different wallet such as Electrum. Optionally transfer the money back to your Bitcoin-core wallet. This might be quicker but you won't get the full transaction history back into Bitcoin-core

Thats what i ran into last time, waited several day for the sync, didnt pay attention to the prunning option, and i already had my wallet file but didnt put in the folder when it synced. Then i put the wallet back and it says cant rescan  need to download everything again

Since then i disabled the prunning mode.

But maybe its not like this anymore idk


If im not mistaken when the pruning mode is enabled you can chose the amount of data to keep ( eg 2gb ) so it seems incompatible in the principle to being able to keep everything with a fixed space didnt seem to me it was keeping all the chainstate but maybe im wrong.

[BlackHatCoiner]

only difference?
you forgot the lack of being a seeder to other peers for their IBD

No, I didn't. Lack of being a seeder is less services.

if there is a hack. the fullnode checks the blockchain hashes and if the data matches, the blocks do not get rejected and so life continues

Alright, so what prevents the hacker from changing your Bitcoin client binaries and not do what you're saying? If we're going to examine what happens in a scenario where a malicious person reaches our computer, I can provide many arguments why having a full non-pruned node or not won't matter security-wise.

i know you dont believe in blockchains and you are trying hard to drive people not to use blockchains.

I know you see everyone biasedly, but that's okay. You can't hurt me without my permission.

he didnt mention which software he had and i didnt ask

It doesn't matter. What matters is that you can run a pruned node and have the entire UTXO set. You can verify everything and not keep everything.

If im not mistaken when the pruning mode is enabled you can chose the amount of data to keep ( eg 2gb ) so it seems incompatible in the principle to being able to keep everything with a fixed space didnt seem to me it was keeping all the chainstate but maybe im wrong.

You weren't wrong. It isn't fixed the data it stores. The chainstate gets bigger during IBD.

[IadixDev]

You weren't wrong. It isn't fixed the data it stores. The chainstate gets bigger during IBD.

Seem you are right and the size limit is for blocks, and there is additional space for the utxo.

But then why does it need to redownload everything to rescan an address ?

[BlackHatCoiner]

But then why does it need to redownload everything to rescan an address ?

Full nodes that need to rescan the entire chain to check the balance of a new address don't keep the entire UTXO set. Remember that you should keep only your own UTXOs if you're using Bitcoin for personal use. You need all the UTXOs only when you want to analyze the chain or use commands such as getrawtransaction.

I suspect that if you set txindex=1, you won't have to rescan and wait for so long, whether you're pruning or not.

[IadixDev]

But then why does it need to redownload everything to rescan an address ?

Full nodes that need to rescan the entire chain to check the balance of a new address don't keep the entire UTXO set. Remember that you should keep only your own UTXOs if you're using Bitcoin for personal use. You need all the UTXOs only when you want to analyze the chain or use commands such as getrawtransaction.

I suspect that if you set txindex=1, you won't have to rescan and wait for so long, whether you're pruning or not.

But then if you dont have all the utxo you cant validate the transactions in New blocks either ? ( unless they are related to address in your wallet or spend utxo from recent block ).

[franky1]

don't worry about blackhatcoiner.

he doesn't understand the principle of storing the entire blockchain to help the backbone of the decentralised network.
he doesn't care about seeding the blockchain for others,
he doesn't care about being helpful to the network or the security benefits of the blocks hashes
nor does he care for blockchains as a whole


even now he tries convincing people to prune even when they found no issue with being a full node but issues pruning.

his motives are that pruning is what everyone should do and no one should be a full node(means archiving blockchain)
he has tried before to tweak the grammar to make "full node2 mean pruned.

and once set with people pruning, he then wants to later advertise to you to not use your node to move coins on the bitcoin network but lock them up in a co-partnered contract, to use on another network.

he is not in your house looking at your screen or seeing your settings or knowing your hard drive specs, so when he makes accusations that he knows better about what and how you are running things.. he has a motive behind it

its good that you are a full node and want to help the backbone of the decentralised network by following the original principles. i hope you enjoy bitcoin and not end up getting swayed over to other networks for their commercial gain

[IadixDev]

its good that you are a full node and want to help the backbone of the decentralised network by following the original principles. i hope you enjoy bitcoin and not end up getting swayed over to other networks for their commercial gain

I dont really see what other network i would use ethereum is clusterfuck squared, then there is what dash ( centralized clusterfuck ) , maybe caradanno but staking is another kind of clusterfuck .. if you cant run a full p2p node im not interested most the other thing you need to somehow pay to run full validating node or some other catch.

[pooya87]

But then why does it need to redownload everything to rescan an address ?

Full nodes that need to rescan the entire chain to check the balance of a new address don't keep the entire UTXO set. Remember that you should keep only your own UTXOs if you're using Bitcoin for personal use. You need all the UTXOs only when you want to analyze the chain or use commands such as getrawtransaction.

I suspect that if you set txindex=1, you won't have to rescan and wait for so long, whether you're pruning or not.

But then if you dont have all the utxo you cant validate the transactions in New blocks either ? ( unless they are related to address in your wallet or spend utxo from recent block ).

UTXOs are unspent transaction outputs, nodes (both full and full pruned) store this and update it with each block they receive.

The reason why they rescan the whole blockchain when you import a new key/address is so that they can show you the entire history involving your key. Technically they don't have to do that, it is just that bitcoin core is designed that way and this way it won't cause any confusions.
Otherwise they can simply scan their UTXO database and only show you what "coins" you currently have and can spend instead of showing you what "coins" you may have had and already have spent.

a hacker can attack your node and slip in a UTXO.

If a hacker could gain access to your computer you have way more serious things to worry about that the hacker modifying your UTXO database!